Page 84 - my-people-abbie-harris-beck

UNCLE JIM , MY MOTHER'S BROTHER

Uncle Jim was saved by a conversion by God. It changed his life forever. Before his
conversion, he had a farm , a store with a post office in Dayton, Georgia. He kept the
store open everyday of the week and sold moonshine, wine and beer. Uncle Jim drank and
chewed tobacco. In the late 1800's, all the land in Georgia had not been claimed, so he
would forge bogus deeds and was making plenty of money. One day he became ill and
believed he was going to die. After not getting any better, he knelt by his bed and told
God that he would do anything God wanted him to do . During the night it came to Uncle
Jim that he had to burn the bogus deeds, so he threw them into the fire and burned them .
Still the pain would not go away. He knelt by his bed and prayed again. This time the
Lord told him to burn all his money. Uncle Jim got dressed, got his black satchel went to
Valdosta on the train. He went to the bank drew out all his money. He came home , built
a fire in the fireplace and started throwing money in the fire. His wife thought that he was
crazy. She reached and grabbed most of the money. Uncle Jim told her if you want me to
live , you have to burn all the money. So she threw the money back into the fire and
watched it burn.
Uncle Jim's sickness lasted for seven more days. The Lord appeared to him again
and told him to cleanse himself of all filth: tobacco, drinking moonshine and give away all
he owned and go preach the gospel. He went to the Bethel Primitive Baptist church and
asked to preach. After they had heard about him burning all his money, they thought that
he was crazy and would not let him in the pulpit, but would all ways ask him to pray.
After throwing all his money in the fire, his wife would not let him give the land away. It
was full of virgin pines.
Uncle Jim (James) told about a neighbor woman and her baby visiting Grandma
Fouraker in the pocket, The neighbor woman got mad with her baby and threw it into an
enclosure lull of wild hogs that had been penned up to be butchered for meat. Grandma
climbed over the rail fence and into the pen with a stick . She beat the hogs back, got the
baby out and raised it even though she had 14 children of her own. Grandma Fouraker
had lost four children by fire and through illness. She did the best she could without
doctors or medicine and Grandpa away fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War.

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7 7 Jim Fouraker